The recent financial markets crisis turned out to be an unexpected boon for microfinance in the United States, for the simple reason that microenterprise development organizations (MDOs) were still lending while banks were still lacking liquidity or hampered by nervous regulators. However, while the added attention to microlending has been a very good thing for [...]

The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), national trade organization for the microenterprise development industry, announced last week that Connie Evans would assume the helm of the organization as President and CEO, effective March 11, 2009, and I think it is fair to say that the news was greeted gleefully. Ms. Evans was one of the [...]

Over the past few months, while a horrified nation watched the financial markets implode before their unbelieving eyes, the microenterprise development industry has been engaged in a certain amount of throat-clearing and hand-waving. The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), the national trade organization for the industry, has repeatedly (if a bit diffidently) pointed out that [...]

Late last month, the Social Venture Network announced the recipients of its 2008 Innovations Awards, one of which was Jonathan Lewis, founder of MicroCredit Enterprises. MicroCredit Enterprises is a private sector anti-poverty program that helps to fund microcredit programs. It’s innovation was to guarantee the loans that microfinance organizations use to capitalize their loan funds, [...]

When Congress finally got its act together to get a new Farm Bill to the President’s desk earlier this year, there was much cheer among rural development advocates, thanks to the mandatory funding for the new rural microenterprise development program written into the legislative language. That mandatory funding provision was important. Congress has a history [...]

The microenterprise development industry in the U.S. is quietly changing. In some ways, that was inevitable. It is modeled on third world experiments and needed to evolve to fit its environment. To get more specific, microenterprise development industry leaders are recognizing that it needs to stop isolating itself and take its place in the nation’s [...]